SXSW: Youth Lagoon

The bright and sponsorship-laden venue known this week as the IFC Crossroads House is garish in all the ways you'd expect. TVs on every wall. A lounge where you can play Xbox. A big neon Time Warner eyeball staring at you, bringing up bad memories of that time your DVR cut off the final 10 minutes of that "Mad Men" finale. This night's program was an all-Boise affair featuring Built to Spill and Youth Lagoon at the top of the bill. (Based on the couple of Boise bar bands I heard leading up to Youth Lagoon's set, it's probably not set to be the Next anything anytime soon, fwiw.) So you've got YL front man Trevor Powers sitting in front of some keyboards and a guitarist playing carefully and piped-in drums surrounded by ripe-popsicle orange and green lights. It just didn't work. Powers' songs are hushed and if he had any hope of getting over the not-too-interested crowd's chatter, he was gonna need a real-life person behind the kit, at the very least. It probably says something that one of the most exciting parts of the set was when Powers took a break to pop some fresh AAs into one of his keyboards. Maybe he should play a gig with a battery sponsorship next time...

Number of songs that could've used a live drummer: All of 'em

Number of flatscreen TVs in the place: Around 10

Times I was personally distracted by the trailers for IFC's beard-based reality show "Whisker Wars" on said flatscreens: 14

Longest beard seen on said "Whisker Wars" trailer: A braided one that went from an old dude's chin to his knees.

Secret wish: That Powers had a braided beard that went from his chin to his knees.

But wouldn't that hypothetical beard get in the way of his keyboard playing? Not my problem.

Number of heavy-duty cameras filming the performance: Three

Percentage of people paying attention to the band: 40

Memo to the audience member wearing the ill-fitting Indiana Jones hat: Don't be that guy.

Burning question: Does Powers own 10 identical floppy hats or just one really gross one?